Code 13: LOSS
The next day, they packed some food from the stores in the cellar and stepped outside, where Zaber activated the transporter again.
"So Hopper actually contacted you? Why?" Ulrich asked Jeremy.
"Well... our situation was so out of control I tried to get a message to him..." Jeremy began to respond, but Zaber cut him off.
"You mean you already knew how to contact him and didn't tell me?" Zaber said furiously as he drove the sphere onward.
"Well... He'd never responded before so I wasn't expecting him to actually contact us this time. I just figured that even if there was the slightest chance..."
"You still should have told me!" Zaber shouted at him. Yumi, who had been sitting on the floor of the sphere, stood up.
"Zaber... I think it's about time to explain why you've got such a vendetta against Hopper." She said sternly, and the others stood up behind her, nodding to what she had said.
"I don't have to explain myself to you." Zaber said as he turned away while still guiding the transporter, as they passed out of Great Britain and out over the Atlantic ocean.
"But why won't you?" Aelita asked him. "What do you have to lose by explaining it?" Zaber hesitated for a moment.
"Your trust." He responded. Jeremy tried to say something, but Zaber glared at him, and Jeremy closed his mouth. Zaber thought for a moment as everyone was silent, and then responded. "Hopper and I have a history. Let's just say finding him is the only thing that's been driving me for the last ten years. I don't know what kind of sick joke the world's playing by connecting him to you guys, but for your sake I hope that connection isn't too strong." Zaber focused in on piloting the transporter and refused to answer any more of their questions.
In Paris, William, now dressed in formal attire, walked into an office building and boarded the elevator. He stepped out of the elevator on the 20th floor, and walked past the secretary with a nod. He walked through the door at the back of room into the cream colored office with the dark cherry wood desk. The clean-shaven man sat at the desk, typing at a laptop computer.
"Good afternoon, "Representative Alexander"." William said as he shut the double doors behind him.
"Come now. There's no need to call me by my alias while we are alone." The man said.
"Yes, master Xana." William responded glazedly.
"That is better. Now, did you get what I asked for?" Xana asked him.
"Yes." William held up a CD. It was sealed in a shrink-wrapped plastic bag, with the word CONFIDENTIAL stamped onto the bag.
"Good. I could not get them myself, I needed you. This body lacks any of my usual powers." Xana said disgustedly as he stared at his own flesh hand. "But, it has other advantages. I had only to kill the real representative Alexander, and then permanently implant myself into his body. Thus I was able to survive in the real world without an activated tower. This identity affords me vast political power, at the expense of the physical. But then again, that's why I brainwashed you, isn't it?"
"Yes... master Xana." William muttered. "What are your orders?"
"I am expected in parliament this afternoon. I'm leaving you in charge of carrying out the next turn in this chess game." Xana said, and spun the computer around so that if faced William. Xana had activated a tower. "The next step in my plan requires a large-scale catastrophe. I don't care how you do it, but I need a large attack. Hundreds, thousands dead. But, I am not ready to show my hand. This must be disguised as the action of a third-party. The target and MO are up to you. You shouldn't have any problem, they will not be able to deactivate the tower. Just think big." Xana said as he stood up and walked around the desk. "I'll be in touch." Xana said as he tapped William on the shoulder, the Xana marks in William's eyes flashed from black to red in the instant that Xana touched him, and William began to type, Xana's control on him renewed and amplified. Xana picked up a briefcase in the corner and walked out the double doors.
It was roughly two hours later and they were a third of the way across the ocean, switching pilots every time one got tired. Odd was constantly trying to calm Kiwi, and Ulrich and Yumi discussed what they believed might have happened to William. Zaber talked to no one, and Jeremy and Aelita were overall silent. Jeremy, having had another restless night, released a large yawn as he stretched.
"What's wrong?" Aelita asked him.
"I had another nightmare. You know the one I mean." Jeremy responded sleepily, but no one else seemed to notice what he had said. "I'm really worried Aelita."
"Why don't you try and get a rest? It's not like there's anything else to do." Aelita muttered.
"I suppose." Jeremy said, as he pulled off his laptop and sat it on the floor of the transporter. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep.
After about half an hour, Jeremy was in a gentle sleep. At least, that's what it seemed like on the surface. But he was having another, completely new premonition. He was on a plane, with people all around. His vision was distorted slightly, everything was blurry and his peripheral vision was for the most part cut off. He couldn't hear anything, but no one in the cabin seemed to notice him. Aside from that everything seemed normal. He was standing in the center of the isle, and looked around, unable to find anything, sighed in dismay. This vision must have been pointless. But his hearing came back at light speed as he heard a scream. He spun around to see, in the back row of the cabin, a specter, having taken the form of William, pinning someone against the wall and shocking them with lightning from his hand. Everyone in the cabin stood up and began to scream, some of them bolting to the front of the plane to escape William, some rushing towards him to confront him. Several tackled him, forming a veritable dog pile, but William burst out of it with bolts of energy flying from his body. He grinned wickedly, Jeremy saw that Xana marks were still in his eyes. Jermey expected the vision to end at any time, but it did not. William walked down the isle, and passed right through Jeremy, knocking passengers away with a blast from his hand, and passing through the door into the cockpit. Jeremy realized by now that he was having another one of his bizarre premonitions. But this one was deathly serious. The people in the cabin flew into a fervor and began to move about, and Jeremy felt himself trampled by the maddened mob before waking up. He woke up gently, with no yell, no pain, and no overall reaction. His eyes simply flitted open, and everything was normal. He sat up and grabbed his glasses, and cleaned them off before putting them on. He had been asleep for longer than he thought. The sun was at high-noon, but because they were traveling with it. Due to jetlag, he realized they could have been flying for anywhere from 4-10 hours. He looked around and saw that everyone else had taken his cue and taken a nap. Everyone but Zaber, who still stood with one hand on the controls, and his cell phone in the other hand, using an electronic compass feature to maintain an eastward trajectory. After making sure they were on course, he returned the phone to his pocket and closed his eyes, while still continuing to pilot the sphere. He did not yet realize Jeremy was awake. Jeremy pondered trying to go back to sleep. The dreams were still disturbing, but he was used to them by now. He could tell that even if he figured out what, when, and where this vision would occur, he could do little to stop it. Worrying about it as this point was pointless. He spoke to Zaber.
"I just had another vision." Jeremy said. Zaber's eyes snapped open.
"What? You mean like the Code Angel?" Zaber asked him.
"Sort of. This one was much less abstract though. I was on a plane, and then Xana attacked, and created a specter of William. He started to attack the passengers, and that's when it ended."
"That seems way to specific to be one of your visions. Are you sure it wasn't just a dream?" Zaber said skeptically.
"I don't know, but you can't be too careful."
"Well... don't bother telling the others. Even if it comes true, if they know they'll just worry. From the sound of it, we won't be able to do anything anyway. Kay?" Zaber replied logically. Jeremy thought for a moment, thinking that the others could become angry with him if he didn't tell them. But, after a few minutes consideration, he realized Zaber had the right idea.
"Alright. Want me to take over for a little while?" Jeremy volunteered.
"About time. I've been flying for the last three hours..." Zaber muttered as he stepped out of the control position and Jeremy stepped in. "Just keep going straight. According to the GPS, we should be in New York in about two hours." Zaber said as he sat down and pulled out his cell phone and activated the program once more. He grabbed Jeremy's laptop which was lying on the floor of the transporter and booted it up. "I'm going to start planning for when we arrive in New York." He brought up a website to find some sort of accommodations for them, and then dropped into deep concentration, as Jeremy stared off into the horizon.
The sphere dropped underwater as they neared the mainland, but the water did not penetrate the sphere. They reached the New York harbor, and the sphere rolled onto land from the water and disappeared, and luckily enough, no one was around. But they still ran quickly into the center of the city, trying to blend into the crowd. Zaber had been unable to find any place for them to stay for an extended time, but he took his adoptive parents emergency credit card and used it to check them into a cheap, low profile hotel. They got three rooms next to each other, and placed their meager belongings within before gathering in Zaber and Jeremy's room for a strategy meeting.
"So, what now?" Ulrich asked.
"Hopper said to meet him in New York City in three days. It's only been one. He wasn't at all specific regarding where and when. We don't know how to find him and he doesn't know where to find us." Jeremy explained.
"Is the number still in you call history?" Yumi asked him.
"Already tried that." Jeremy said as he held the phone up and pressed the dial button.
"THE NUMBER YOU HAVE DIALED IS NOT IN SERIVCE." The melancholy voice in the phone rang. Jeremy pressed the hang up button and the line cut.
"SO... in other words, were up the river without a paddle." Odd said.
"All we can do is wait for Hopper to contact us again than." Aelita added. Zaber sulked, staying out of the Hopper related conversation.
"So, what are we supposed to do in the mean time?" Yumi asked.
"Lie low. There's nothing left for us to do now. If anything, we should try and make ourselves look more like tourists be exploring the city." Jeremy said. "If we run into any trouble, we have our scanners, so we can defend ourselves." Jeremy said as he fingered his scanner. Before they had left the factory, they had permanently moved their data into the scanners, removing the hold the supercomputer had on their functionality, as they suspected the enforcers would promptly begin to interfere with the computer.
"I'm for Jeremy's idea. The snake will come crawling out of the ground in time." Zaber said, but everyone glared at him. He ignored it, and continued, "Let's just see what we can do." He passed out some false ID's and credit cards he had made. "We'll split up. If Hopper reveals himself or anyone catches on to us, conference call the whole team and make sure everyone stays up to date." Zaber walked out of the room and down the hall, out into the city.
"I think I'll go with Zaber. Maybe I can squeeze a little information out of him." Odd said.
"Just be careful Odd. Zaber seems a little unstable to me." Ulrich said as he clasped Odd on the shoulder.
"Who do you think you're dealing with?" Odd asked him sarcastically as he brushed Ulrich's hand away and ran out after Zaber. The others split up shortly after, and set out upon the town.
Meanwhile, at the factory, Sanderson stood over the shoulder of his technical expert, who sat at the computer terminal, staring at lines and lines of code, but a window appeared.
"Whoa!" The man said.
"What is it?" Sanderson asked him.
"Some kind of alert message... activated tower... that doesn't make sense." The man said as he analyzed the data. "What the hell is a tower?" The man asked Sanderson.
"How the hell should I know?" Sanderson replied. "It's your job to figure it out!"
"Yes sir. I'm on it." The man said as he began to quickly cycle through assorted files. Meanwhile, a trans-atlantic flight from France to America, about an half-hour off of the mainland, sent out a distress signal. They had been hijacked... by a specter.
Zaber walked down the busy street, skirting other pedestrians as he walked against the flow. Odd tagged along behind him, trying to make light conversation.
"Why are you following me?" Zaber asked him.
"I don't know, you looked like you could use some company." Odd said politely.
"Well thanks, but no thanks." Zaber said as he began to walk faster, and Odd broke into a jog to catch up and walk beside him.
"What's wrong with you? You've been freaking out since we left Europe."
"Well, we just got our entire lives wrecked for the rest of our lives, and if Xana has his way, the whole world had about a month to live. Yeah, I'm freaking out!"
"Well, maybe Xana won't attack for a while and..."
"It doesn't matter. We can't use the factory, we can't go to Lyoko. He can take control of a world leader at the drop of a hat now, and we can't do jack squat. On top of that, with no return to the past, there's no way to go back, so Xana's damage is irreversible."
"I'm sure Einstein will come up with something eventually. Maybe the return to the past can be reprogrammed."
"And how are we supposed to get to the supercomputer?" Zaber asked him as he veered to the right and into a small pizza parlor.
"I dunno... maybe Jeremy will negotiate with them or something. Convince the enforcers that were on their side."
"Fat chance." Zaber said, as he slid a credit card across the table. "X-large, double cheese, double pepperoni, stuffed crust, and extra sauce." Zaber said quickly to the man behind the counter, who promptly relayed the directions to another man in the back.
"I don't know, I just think we ought to stay optimistic. Were not out of this yet." Odd said.
"If you haven't noticed, we're on the lamb here." Zaber muttered sarcastically. "We'll be lucky if we live to see Xana take the whole world down."
"Maybe Hopper will have some ideas."
"If the coward ever shows his face." Zaber said as he glared at the ground. Odd gave up trying to reason with him, and leaned against the counter in dismay.
"You are going to share that pizza with me, right?" Odd said as he licked his lips.
"Fine. You can have a third of it." Zaber said with a groan. The pizza came out shortly, and they sat at a table in the crowded room, eating in practical silence compared to the other happy patrons. A TV in the corner of the room over Odd's shoulder was running CNN, but Zaber ignored it. Odd watched a baseball game on the screen over Zaber's shoulder. He was not familiar with the teams, but it was something to do. A gasp ran through the room. The Giants hit a homerun, and Odd punched his arm in the air and shouted,
"Yes!", but the entire room turned and stared at them. Odd stopped when he noticed this. "What?" He asked them.
"Odd, you retard! Look behind you!" Zaber said angrily as he shook his fist. The crowd had not been gasping at the homerun, they had not even noticed it. All eyes were on the CNN TV screen. The caption on the bottom of the screen said "Breaking News: Plane Hijacked Over Atlantic"; which had appeared the instant before Odd had cheered. Odd gaped in shock, and realizing that most of the people in the room, thought he had cheered after seeing that message, he broke into a rambling, apologetic speech trying to explain what had happened. Zaber blocked him out and listened to the newscast. He was able to grasp the following: passengers, calling from plane phones, indicated a super-powered being with a symbol in his eyes appear from nowhere in the back of the plane, killed several passengers, and then walked through the locked door, killed the pilot, and took control of the plane. The government said, based on radar, he was on a collision course with New York. There was only ten minutes to impact, and there was no way to shoot the plane down or disable it. Fighters had been scrambled, but impact was going to be made. "Odd, we've gotta get out of here!" Zaber said as he grabbed Odd by the arm and pulled him from the restaurant, leaving the pizza half-finished.
Outside, a few blocks away, Jeremy and Aelita walked past a busy department store.
"I'm still really worried Jeremy. There's no way out of it." Aelita said.
"Maybe instead of trying to figure out how to get out of it, we should try and figure out what to do now. You know, instead of trying to figure out a way to go back."
"I suppose your right." Aelita said. "I'm also worried about Zaber. What if he really does try and kill Hopper?"
"Then... we may have to stop him... however we can." Jeremy answered grimly.
"But what if he really is Hopper's son? That would make him my brother..."
"We still don't know if what we saw was true or not."
"But why wouldn't it be true? How could Zaber possibly have "false memories"?"
"If Zaber's memory is true, than you would be dead. That proves that Zaber's memories aren't true! I don't know how those memories got there, but they can't be true. He's not your brother Aelita." Jeremy said in a pleading tone. Aelita stopped and looked down, and Jeremy stopped as well, looking at her.
"I... I suppose you're right..." Aelita answered shakily. But they were both startled when the TV's in the windows of the store all flipped off their normal programming and moved to the news, broadcasting the news of the hijacking. Jeremy's phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Jeremy, did you hear the news?" Zaber asked him urgently
"Yeah. This is not good." Jeremy said to him. "It's happening."
"Where do you think Xana's going to target?"
"The tallest building in the city..." Jeremy said grimly as he glanced a few blocks away at the Empire State Building. "What are we going to do?"
"You're not doing anything! Take Aelita and get as far away from here as possible. If this doesn't work, you could be in danger."
"Zaber, wait! What are you..." Jeremy exclaimed, but Zaber had hung up on him. Meanwhile, a few blocks away, Zaber turned and stopped running, and Odd stopped behind him.
"Odd... contact Yumi and Ulrich, then meet up with Aelita and Jeremy out of town. It's too dangerous here." Zaber ordered him.
"Wait, what are you talking about Zaber?" Odd questioned him angrily. "Why aren't you coming?"
"I'm going to try and save who I can." Zaber said grimly.
"Then we'll help you!"
"NO! I'm the only one who can do this. Just get everyone else out and keep them safe Odd!"
"But..."
"I SAID NO!" Zaber said as he shoved Odd to the ground and ran off towards the tower, glancing at the dumbstruck Odd regretfully over his shoulder. He faced forward, and while continuing to run triggered his scanner. A plane appeared on the horizon.
"What is he trying to do?" Odd said to himself, but after a few seconds, he knew.
Zaber continued to run towards the building as he swiped his now light-ringed hand across the scanner, and his body transformed into wire-frame and then Lyoko form as he continued to run.
"Overskates!" Zaber shouted the command as he took a small leap forward, and the skates appeared beneath his shoes before he landed, as he blasted towards the building. The plane drew ever closer. He was about a block away. Four minutes to impact. The other's all converged back towards the hotel. Zaber closed his eyes as he continued to skate towards the tower. "Mother... forgive me... to save thousands... I'm going to have to kill hundreds. I'm no better than my father..." Zaber said solemnly, and then his eyes burst open, glowing yellow, as he moved at lightning speed. He hit the curb, using it as ramp and launching himself onto the empire state building, the skates became magnetic as he used the continued momentum of blossom speed to skate up the side of the building. The plane entered the skyline of the city, flying above the lower buildings, on a direct course for the building. Zaber reached the top of the tower, and dropped out of blossom speed as he kicked off the building, Styx in hand. He aimed the gun at the plane. He snapped his fingers on his right hand, and the fabric of his sleeve burst away, the tattoo glowing again. The Devil Arm appeared, and Zaber, still in mid-air, charged a shot as the plane grew ever closer. The plane was only a few hundred feet away, and Zaber could feel the wind of it's speed approaching. The Devil Arm fired, and the light burst forth, with such a wide blast radius that the entire plane, wingspan and all, was engulfed. Zaber's eyes watered. He may have saved the thousands in the tower and the surrounding area, but the hundred or so passengers were dead. The devil arm stopped firing, and the count dropped by two rather than one, due to having to use even more power than usual to create such a large blast.
Across the ocean, the sun had setting in Paris, and the real William, still sitting motionless in front of the computer terminal at Xana's desk, suddenly clutched his head as the specter he was controlling was obliviated. His eyes burst open, the Xana marks within them beginning to fluctuate. William emitted a scream of pain, and then Xana marks in his eyes became covered with bright green cracks. After a few seconds, the Xana marks burst away, revealing his normal, black pupils. He gasped for breath as he hit the ground on all fours. He could remember it all, the entire time he was possessed, but he was unable to take any action. But now, he was somehow free. He knew he had to do something. He searched the room, and found a hidden shotgun in one of drawers. He crouched behind Xana's desk, and waited.
A few hours later, all around the world, news of the events in New York had whipped the entire world into a fervor of panic. Aelita and Jeremy had seen the blast from the hotel room, and everyone but Zaber was accounted for.
"Do you think something happened to him?" Ulrich said worriedly. Aelita had been sobbing for a short while, mourning the people who had been killed. But she did realize Zaber had done the only logical thing. Had he not blown up the plane, the people on the plane AND the one's in the tower would have died.
"He's not answering his cell. Something must have happened to him." Jeremy said as he futilely dialed Zaber's number for the tenth time.
"I hope he's OK..." Odd muttered, having been the last one to see him.
A few miles away, on a roof-top roughly four-stories up, Zaber's cell-phone sat on the ledge. It rang again, but no one answered. Zaber laid on the rooftop, spread eagle on his back. He was back in his normal, human form, the tattoo on his arm now displayed "IV". He breathed deeply his eyes closed, ignoring the phone. He knew it was one of the others calling, but he did not want to talk to them yet. He had no idea what to say. The phone stopped ringing, and Zaber reached for it, and then turned it off. He tried to rest, but he knew what he had done would continue to trouble him for years, no matter how much he reasoned with himself.
A light turned on in the room outside the office in which William hid. William snapped onto full alert as he saw the crack of light beneath the door. In the room outside, Xana set down a briefcase on the secretary's desk, she had long since left. He opened the door to the office, and flipped on a light. William stood up quickly from behind the desk, and aimed the shotgun at him.
"I've got you now." William said.
"Oh really?" Xana said calmly. "I see my control was broken. I'm afraid, you are no longer a useful pawn."
"Damn straight! I'm through with you, Xana!" William said, as he gripped the trigger. He emptied the entire ammunition; each round of bullets hit Xana directly. Xana recoiled with each hit. "Gotcha!" William exclaimed. Xana bled, but did not fall.
"Not quite." Xana said. He moved with such speed that his actual movement could not be seen, only the result. William dropped to the floor, a knife impaled into his skull.
"What... but... you lost your powers..." William said with his last breath before the damage to his brain caused him to collapse, his entire body shutting down without the brain to give it orders.
"I believe you humans call it... a lie."
The next morning, as the sun rose over Paris, a paperboy performing his root threw a paper onto the doorstep of a small home. Two headlines adorned the front page; "Incidents in New York and Catic City Linked" and "William Dunbar found dead after 1.5 year Disappearance: Killer Still at Large".
Code 13: LOSS... END
